Went sturgeon fishing with my dad, a friend of his, and his 8 year old son today just outside the Fishery. Windy, windy, windy. Four foot swells. White caps. No fish.

Anyway, this morning a barge came upstream and was at least 200 feet from us who were fishing on the Washington side of the Columbia. Watched as boats moved out of the way obediently and grateful that we weren't one of them.

A couple hours later one of us happens to look upstream and see a barge hugging the Washington shores pretty tight. It was curious for sure, and we watched as he bore right and appeared to be taking the same line as the previous upstream tug and barge.

We checked behind us again and saw that he had changed course again and was bearing down on us quickly. We scrambled to reel the three lines up and during the reel up the tug did the customary 5 short tones. We had the kicker already running to try and keep us straight, so we gunned it to get us out of there. Fifteen seconds of that and it wasn't fast enough, so we cranked up the main motor and blasted out of there with our bouy trailing behind us pulling up the anchor line. He missed us by about 50 feet.

My concern is this. There was less than 60 seconds warning from the time he did his warning blows and when he reached us. We were on the Washington side of the river and 15 feet shallower (60' deep) than the deepest part of the channel that we found, and about 150 feet from shore. If we did not see him first we would have quite possibly not made it. And my wife brings up tonight the story about the man that was killed a couple weeks ago whose son also said that they were not in the main channel.

Please people, be careful out there. It scares me to ponder these things, but was he gunning for us?

Fobbman

Remember this; Down- river traffic almost always has the right of way in rivers!! You are not allowed to "anchor" in a main travel channel unless you are under a derris. Glad to see that you and your friends did not get hurt! Big water always have Big traffic problems!

Cowlitzfisherman,

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

I very seriously doubt he was "gunning" for you, those guys have 100% right of way over you and a very difficult job, stay the hell out of there way or be prepared to be another statistic, coasties will side with the tug every time barring failed drug test.

He had 90% of the channel that he could have gone down to the North of us...taking the edge of the channel like he did seemed to be a bit on the dangerous side to me, but I'm just some schmuck trying to fish on the Columbia.

Perhaps you should get behind the wheel of one of them tugs. I have a good friend who works for one of those tug companies and runs the columbia in that area all the time. They're in a situation where they can't back off the throttle. They're like a monster sailboat, if they back off the throttle in the winds you were talking about they'd end up right on the shore. Perhaps it was the winds that was pushing him your way. Think about this, you're going downriver and have to go faster than the current to steer, and you have a wind gust right in your face, one little wrong turn makes for big mistakes.
Thank goodness you didn't get hit, but always pay special attention to the tug and ship traffic because they do have the right to run right over the top of you, regardless of the conditions.
Keith

Fobbman;

One more point to think about. If the tug is in tow (towing something behind it down river), no matter what he does when he going down river, his cargo keeps right on going! Even when he attempts to stop, his cargo keeps right on going! Once he looses control of that, S*** happens real fast! He may be able to turn his tug in time to miss you, but he can't control where his tow or the tow line will go. Consider this your first bad experience on what not to do when you hear the 5-whistle blow!

Cowlitzfisherman,

Is the taste of the bait worth the sting of the hook????

What's also bothersome is when it's windy, you can't always hear the horn until they are up close. I have this habit of looking upstream nervously when anchored in the area.

Couple of things:

He had a 20 mpg headwind so no tailwind pushing him.

He was pushing, not pulling.

We were frantically reeling BEFORE he blew his horn. If we had not seen him and then started to reel in when he blew his horn (IMO he didn't blow it soon enough) it would have been ugly.

I know that they cannot stop worth a damn. I would have liked more warning than what was given to us. It was a disaster waiting to happen.